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Preconditioning settings like pre-heat from my BMW EV app not working due to clashing with OVO's Charge Anytime?


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Shads_OVO
Retired Moderator
  • Retired Moderator
  • June 12, 2024

Hi @GarryC1989,

 

I’ve managed to get a response from the team.

 

Unfortunately there’s no update on this issue at the moment. For some vehicles, including BMW & MINI, our smart charging control automatically overwrites any existing pre-heating/cooling schedules. Please accept our apologies for this inconvenience, and be advised that we are working hard to try to rectify this issue, but it is not something that we can resolve soon so in the meantime you will need to decide if you are willing to forego these features in exchange for the Charge Anytime savings.


  • Carbon Cutter*
  • October 3, 2024

Any Updates on this, I am having the same issues. The App stops the charging and never restarts! I have been caught out twice recently and had to Urgent Charge to get me to a DC charger, which defeats the whole point of having a charger at home! Time to switch to another energy supplier if its taken over a year and no updates or improvements?? 


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  • Carbon Cutter****
  • October 3, 2024

It’s a lost cause I’m afraid, it’s never going to be fixed. All you can do is monitor the charge. Mine works about 60% of the time, other times I’m restarting the car, restarting the app all fun and games.

Switching provided wont help as they all use the same software - Enode. Seems the only true way is to get a compatible charger, or switch the a company that offers a low night rate and just charge without the use of an app during these times…

 


  • Carbon Cutter*
  • October 3, 2024

I will look at alternatives as I have never been happy with OVO tbh. Thanks for the reply. 


Blastoise186
Plan Zero Hero
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This is confirmed to be a BMW issue. The workaround is to just disable pre-conditioning for now.


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  • Carbon Cutter****
  • October 3, 2024

I disabled pre-conditioning 10 months ago, the app is still as reliable as a chocolate teapot. Some times I get a charge and sometimes I don’t. You just can’t trust it.

 

I worked with the technical team for months and this was the reply:

Unfortunately, we've had to go to the central database company on this one. As far as we can see from the data we're receiving there is absolutely no reason for your EV to not be charged correctly. On that basis, it looks like the data we are receiving is incorrect. Most EV manufacturers use a company called Enode to handle their data and allow access to 3rd parties. That's where our data comes from. If the data we're receiving is not showing any errors, but your car isn't charging correctly, there must be a breakdown somewhere in the middle, and that's Enode.  We've asked them either to look at, or allow us access to, your raw data as it comes in from your EV. We have the raw smart meter data and, if we can compare the 2, we're hopeful that we can find a solution. This is new ground and not something that we've had to do before, not to this extent, anyway. That means I can't really tell you what kind of timeframe we're looking at here, I'm afraid. As soon as I have any more information, I'll be in touch.

 


Shads_OVO
Retired Moderator
  • Retired Moderator
  • October 4, 2024

Hi @NeVeTaS,

 

I’m sorry to hear this.

 

I’ve reached out to the team to see if there’s any update on this. I’ll be back as soon as I get response for you.


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  • Carbon Cutter*
  • October 11, 2024

Does having a compatible charger, like an Ohme Pro get over this issue?

thanks very much,


Blastoise186
Plan Zero Hero
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It does, yes. Just make sure to set it up via the Charger!


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  • Carbon Cutter*
  • December 17, 2024

Hi all

Before I got my 530e  I spent a lot of time reading blogs like this to help guide me on my own setup.

In the end I went with an Ohme Charger Pro and connected that to OVO.  OVO doesn't know that I have a BMW, OVO just talks to my Ohme.

Ohme then talks to my BMW which allows the preconditioning to work fine. My car arrived at the start of this month, and running my setup in this way allows everything to work.  My car is warm in the mornings having drawn the power for preconditioning from the charger.

I footed the cost of the charger as I didn't want to miss out on one of the main benefits of having a PHEV which was the preconditioning through the winter. 

Hope my experience helps someone.


Emmanuelle_OVO
Community Manager

That’s really helpful feedback ​@ElliUK. Thanks for sharing your experience 😊

I’ve added an EV badge to your account so other community members with the same green tech can identify you. 

We have a really helpful Charge Anytime hub you may find interesting:
 

https://forum.ovoenergy.com/electric-vehicles-166/charge-anytime-topic-hub-how-to-get-in-touch-17800

 


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  • Carbon Cutter****
  • January 21, 2025
Shads_OVO wrote:

Hi @NeVeTaS,

 

I’m sorry to hear this.

 

I’ve reached out to the team to see if there’s any update on this. I’ll be back as soon as I get response for you.

 

3 months on, nobody ever got back to me. Trust me, they will never fix this…


Blastoise186
Plan Zero Hero
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That’s because it’s ultimately a BMW issue if memory serves.


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  • Carbon Cutter****
  • January 22, 2025

I plugged in last night (Tuesday 21 January 2025) at 4pm. Battery at 63%

App was set to be ready for 8.30am and 80%

 

Car started charging immediately for 3 minutes, then app reported ‘next charge after 12.30am’

It went on to add some charge at 10pm, 10.20pm, 10.30pm, and finally 1.30am.

It’s now Wednesday 22nd January at 9.53am, app reports ‘awaiting your next charge’ and I’m at 68%

 

Useless...


Blastoise186
Plan Zero Hero
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If that’s happening… Call 0330 175 9678 Option 2.


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  • Carbon Cutter****
  • January 22, 2025

Been there, done that. I never have any schedules or preconditions set, and the admins on the forum said they would look into it again, that was 3 months ago, never heard anything. This was the initial reply from OVO:

'I'm sorry for the issue this customer had, although it doesn't seem like there is anything deeper going on. We weren't able to confirm that the BMW was able to begin charging before timing out (BMW accepted our request but for some reason the vehicle never started charging).'

Unfortunately just looks like a case of charge commands sent but not obeyed.
'This issue can be related to an intermittent connection with the vehicle or the connected charger not offering charge to the vehicle when needed.

In order for the Charge Anytime app to work correctly, you must remove any and all schedules from your wall charger as they might cause a conflict with the smart charge schedules sent by the Charge Anytime app. Some chargers have a Plug & Charge mode or something similar, it’s usually best to check with your charger manufacturer as to how best setup the charger to offer maximum charge to the vehicle all day everyday.

In addition please can you make sure that there are no schedules set in your vehicle’s app that could be interfering with our control.

During periods where the vehicle isn’t sending us telemetry, we can't control or record smart charging, meaning that you won’t receive Charge Anytime Credits for charging completed during this period. This is covered in section 7 of our terms Charge Anytime Terms and Conditions| OVO Energy

We know this isn’t an ideal outcome so our developers are working on ways to improve how the app reports this kind of issue on future versions of the app.'


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  • Carbon Cutter*
  • January 29, 2025

So I think that I am having the same issues as many of you.  I have a Mini Cooper e with the Ovo Charge Anytime app linked to the car (charger is not one of the supported chargers).  I have removed all time settings from the Mini App so am hoping it works tonight - last night it charged for about 10 minutes.  

Earlier this evening, as I was trying to set the car up to charge, the timings in the Mini app were jumping around all over the place going back to two days ago.  

Did anyone else ever find a solution?  I really need to use the cheaper electricity for charging up.

 


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  • Carbon Cutter*
  • January 30, 2025

I have now started to get to understand what is going on.

The OVO Charge Anytime app switches charging on and off. Every time it does this the Mini app 'resets' with random dates and times, this stops later charging.

What I did was turn off all Mini app schedules (again) and then set the charge time on the OVO app to a short enough time that it doesn't turn off, it then charged to 80% through the app and getting the savings. 

Not an ideal solution but the car is charged this morning. I'll contact Mini today and the Charge Anytime team again (they didn't respond to my email yesterday) and see if there is a solution. The problem seems to be the time switching in the Mini app.

 

 


Blastoise186
Plan Zero Hero
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If you wish to speak to the Charge Anytime team, it’s actually faster to phone them on 0330 175 9678 and fling things over via email only if they need you to. :)

They do respond to emails too, but please don’t expect a 24 hour response time - they sometimes have large queues to handle!


Abby_OVO
Community Manager
  • Community Manager
  • January 30, 2025

Hey ​@JBrass 

 

I’m sorry to hear about the trouble you’ve been having. I’m glad one of our volunteers has already stopped by with some really helpful advice on this, it’ll definitely be a good idea to get in touch with the team about this directly. 

 

How to get in contact with the Charge Anytime team

  • Charge Anytime - 0330 175 9678 (Option 1 new customers/option 2 existing customers) 

  • chargeanytime@ovo.com

 

https://forum.ovoenergy.com/electric-vehicles-166/charge-anytime-topic-hub-how-to-get-in-touch-17800?tid=17800&fid=166

 

Keep us updated with how you get on.


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  • Carbon Cutter*
  • February 1, 2025

So I spoke to the Charge Anytime team who were really helpful.  Took car off app, put it back on. Plugged in last night it started charging...stopped and started again -thought it was cured.  Woke up this morning, no further charge after midnight and only charged to 45%. 

 

 Frustration is just finding where the issue is! 

 

In order to put on urgent charge this morning had to unplug and replug in car...so now wondering if it could be the charger.  

I thought an EV would make life easier!!!


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